


Angel of the Morning

by Galaw, purpjools



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Alastor is Bad at Feelings (Hazbin Hotel), Art, Brief Consentacles, Collaboration, Denial, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Porn Watching, demon biology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26098225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galaw/pseuds/Galaw, https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpjools/pseuds/purpjools
Summary: The hotel is thriving with the hustle and bustle of wayward souls. As co-conspiratorowner, Alastor is inordinately pleased.The only issue that he has with the sudden surge in popularity stems from the source of it, or the conundrum known as Angel Dust. Unable or unwilling to wrap his mind around the porn star’s apparent magnetism, he decides to take matters into his own hands.For research purposes.
Relationships: Alastor/Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel), Angel Dust (Hazbin Hotel)/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 130
Kudos: 1654





	Angel of the Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Galaw's art twitter/smorgasbord of RadioDust delights: [@dreadfluent](https://twitter.com/dreadfluent?lang=en)

  


* * *

  


Alastor will die again before he admits it, but Angel perplexes him.

He’s unsure why the effeminate demon is so popular with Hell’s denizens: male, female, and what-have-you, alike.

  


At first, he considered that perhaps Angel emitted pheromones of a type or something equally absurdly abstract. A potent aphrodisiac residing within his fangs? A slick secretion from his pores? Alastor couldn’t fathom such lengths to secure a mate, but then, he supposed, it was never his forte to bother with such matters.

  


Nevertheless, Angel’s talent in attracting clients to the hotel is unrivaled and frankly, impressive. They flock to him like bees to honey. Or flies to corpses.

  


He just can’t wrap his mind around how others think him endearing when Alastor finds him palatable at best.

  


It’s not to say that he’s always infuriating; in fact, they’ve maintained a steady repartee over the past several months. Their once contentious discourse mellowed into old-fashioned ribbing from both sides. It’s similar to what he shares with Husk, except less caustic and more good-natured. Initially, Angel’s lack of propriety and crude mannerisms bothered him, but over time, he learned to fire Angel’s own innuendos back at him in a rather impressive display of adaptability.

Hoisted by his own petard, he would say.

You can hoist me with yours, Angel would quip back.

Ultimately, it all comes down to wordplay. He has to admit, for someone with such a filthy mouth, Angel is a worthy adversary.

The pillow talk is a different story.

Angel, for all his showboating, keeps his numerous hands to himself. Alastor, initially, was grateful for this until he was not. As of late, Angel has switched gears from outlandishly flirting with everyone, hotel-employed or otherwise, to reserving subtler sweet nothings solely for, well, _him_. It’s not that Alastor preferred the more obscene turns of phrases; it’s just that these honeyed words tended to burrow deeper under his skin.

Alastor utilizes his fair share of endearments, but Angel’s goes above and beyond simple addressing, and into intimate territory. He’s taken to punctuating every other sentence with _babe_ or some similar form, and on many occasions, referred to him, the Radio Demon, as: _love_.

(The first time it reached his ears, Alastor reacted poorly. The charred door on the second floor is a testament.)

The focal problem, however, lies not with the tender admissions, but the way his cursed body reacts to them.

Over time, it’s become almost anticipatory; the buttery words and gentle fawning lulling him into a false sense of security, and the disgustingly domestic familiarity of it all. Flustered and at his wit’s end, he ends up dispatching his shadows far too late for his liking, and pins him with the shadowy appendages, snaking one around each of his limbs and spreading them away from his torso.

At this point, Angel usually releases a lascivious moan, and one of the girls scurries in to see what tomfoolery is afoot. He’s grateful for their presence if he were honest.

Because the last time, he watched in horror as a wayward tentacle slid too close to his groin, which caused Angel to snap to attention and just _stare_ at him.

He banishes the memory to the recesses of his mind. To his knowledge, he had never lost control of his power in even a subtle capacity.

Angel is, without doubt and always, the culprit.

Alastor likens him to a puzzle he can’t quite figure out. It boggles the mind at how magnetic everyone else finds him to be. Why Alastor’s own powers waver in his presence.

And why Angel seems to be the sole exception to every rule.

And now, here he is, luring clients to the hotel in droves.

Alastor is determined to get to the bottom of this.

* * *

  


He obtains several copies of Angel’s most infamous compilations after taking great pains to secure its privacy.

  


In the end, he transforms the blasted things into film reels. Even though he’s never worked with them before, the mechanics are much easier to understand than the new-fangled automations that plague the recent era. From there, it’s simple enough to set up a blank slate for the projection and tinker around with his specialty, sound.

  


The clicking of the film joins the reel’s mechanical whirring. Alastor snaps his fingers, adjusting the speed to fit his taste.

  


The film starts.

  


Alastor settles in his favorite armchair as the sound of exaggerated moaning circulates throughout the room.

  


* * *

  


It’s twenty minutes into the first show, and Alastor is bored.

The act of foreplay is ruthlessly ignored to encourage momentum towards some vulgar act that includes Angel positioning himself on two of his hands and both knees to be penetrated from each end. The rest is exactly what anyone with half his IQ more or less expects: blatant disregard for lubrication and basic anatomical positions, and a cornucopia of clownishly fabricated moaning. He curls his lip in disgust at the grand finale, using his powers of interference to blur out the copious _waterworks_.

He curbs the increasingly practical impulse to be done with it and set the rest on fire. He massages his temples with his hands, reminding himself to sally forth with his research.

He glances again at the title of the film: _Devil’s Dong_. Perhaps not the best one to start with, in retrospect. The sequels, which he also unfortunately procured, titled _Devil’s Dong 2: Back 4 More_ and _Devil’s Dong 3: Did It Hurt When You Fell From Heaven And Landed On My Dong_ , Alastor decides to skip, if the original is any indication.

The next two, titled _Sex Sex Sex: The Number of the Beast_ and _Angel Food Cock_ respectively, are more of the same. The demons block Angel with their bodies. Gratuitous close-up shots with sooty eye makeup raining down his face sum up the majority of the film. Popular perspectives also include Angel’s head bowed in submission, false smiles, and cheeky bravado at the climax.

Alastor pinches his eyes shut, willing the creeping headache away. He doesn’t know how Vox and his other fellow overlords stomach any this tripe. After a moment, he composes himself. He opens his eyes and adjusts his monocle.

He dips a hand inside his coat, fishing out his pocket watch. He sighs. There’s still a decent amount of time left to view at least three more movies, but impatience gnaws at him. Flipping through the titles, he picks out the most innocuous of the bunch.

_Angel of the Morning._

Snorting, he replaces the reel and snaps his fingers. The picture show begins.

To his surprise, the film starts off in a drastically different way from all the others.

Angel appears on screen, wearing a laced number that barely skims his upper stockinged thighs. His makeup is not overly done up, and he shares the familiar, day to day face of his- _their_ Angel. He perches on the rather sparsely made bed, and sits on four of his hands, tucking them underneath the lace. He crisscrosses his legs at the ankles, looking uncharacteristically shy.

  


  
The setting seems almost amateur compared to the other films. The only detail that reveals it as a professional video is the expert lightning in the backdrop.

  


  


The subdued luminescence bathes Angel in an aureole of light, enhancing his features and rosy coloration. Alastor instantly transports to the past, recalling a similarly stained sunset and its garden pink hues rippling over the brackish waters of the bayou.

  


  


His partner enters, and it pulls him out of the memory. Alastor offhandedly notes the demon as another antlered monstrosity, kindred to his own bestial design. Without preamble, the beast nuzzles at Angel’s neck, nipping lightly. Angel moans as he’s slowly divested of his clothes. The demon strips him, almost tenderly.

  


Alastor’s smile tightens.

  


  
Foreplay, waved off as an afterthought in the previous ones, features prominently. The demon doting on Angel dips his antlered head between his thighs, a prehensile tongue not unlike his own darting out to tease him. Angel reverts to his usual default of dirty talk and lewd, over-the-top moaning, but.

  
  


Something is different.

  
  


He can’t put his finger on it, exactly, but even to Alastor’s inexperienced eye for these sorts of matters, it looks like he’s purposely holding back.

  
  


As if he’s trying his damnedest _not_ to surrender to pleasure.

  
  


  


Alastor does not know what he feels.

  


He watches the picture show unfold, Angel arching in a taut bow above the mattress. His hands clamber around the back of the demon’s head as he encourages him deeper. The theatrical moans that Alastor has come to identify as Angel’s signature utterances are replaced with quiet hitches of breath and huffs as gossamer as the curtains draping the canopy bed.

  
  


This continues for a while.

  
  


He only realizes that he’s balanced at the edge of his seat when his claws snag on the upholstery.

  
  


  


The arms of the chair are carved to ribbons.

  
  


He rapidly replaces his leather gloves with a wave of his hand, his claws having protracted unconsciously. He hasn’t any time to lament or speculate the odd event as the onscreen lovers move at the edges of his periphery.

  
  


The demon breaks away, tongue slithering back inside. Angel cradles his face with three hands, gently stroking his chin. He leans into the touch.

  
  


A deafening screech from Alastor’s microphone shatters the silence.

  
  


Onscreen, the actors don’t heed the interruption; Angel flips over to his stomach as his partner positions himself behind him. It’s not the carnal feast of flesh that intrigues Alastor, but the soft gasp that floats from Angel’s lips as the other demon breaches him. His hips stutter forward, accommodating the girth, but there’s a point where he begins to ease into it, when Angel starts to appear to actually enjoy the intrusion.

The dichotomy between the films is stark.

Alastor conjures another set of gloves.

The insistent thrusting gives way to half-lidded bedroom eyes and honest pleasure. Angel’s fingers scrabble and claw at the sheets, and his lips part again, releasing another quiet moan. His eyes flutter shut, and for a suspended second, he looks almost _heavenly_.

  
  


Alastor hooks a finger under his collar as an unusual warmth blooms up his neck. He removes his suit jacket, folding it hurriedly over the back of his chair. As he settles, he undoes his bow tie. On base instinct, he presses his hand over the front of his trousers. The brief, brainless action causes him to let out a moan.

  


A light explodes overhead.

  


He bolts up.

  


Alastor yanks his hand away as if it scalded him.

  


_In a way, didn’t it?_

  


  
  


He pauses the video, almost breaking the reel. 

“That’s quite enough of that,” he declares, vocalizing to no one in particular. His shadow trills, darting about with a mocking lilt to its chittering. With a flick of his hand, he dismisses the shadows. His snaps, tittering nastily before disappearing under the crack in the door.

Alastor huffs, staring at the ceiling.

Objectively, Angel Dust is aesthetically pleasing. As one can possibly be in their bastardized demonic husks. But Alastor has never been especially inclined to sexual attraction, choosing to admire aesthetics from afar. Until now.

The change unnerves him.

“No,” he says.

No, he berates himself. Hotel property, and nothing more. He’s unsure of _what_ he’s trying to convince but absolutely certain as to _who_.

Alastor tilts his head back, a thousand wayward threads crosshatching patterns in his mind. He ignores all of them in favor of the most vocal one occurring in another head entirely. To distract himself, he glances back at the makeshift screen.

He clenches his teeth until he draws blood.

The stilled picture of Angel, head thrust back, eyes shut, and frozen in a full-body moan graces his wall. The darker curved markings outlining his chest burns into his retinas. Alastor’s fingers trail along the tops of his trousers.

This is Hell, he reasons, and there is nobody else around. It _has_ been quite a while since he’d indulged, which must indicate some kind of buildup, surely.

It’s inevitable, really.

So he tells himself.

He snaps his fingers.

The scene continues.

Unbuckling his belt and loosening his trousers with only marginally trembling fingers, he reaches in, takes himself in hand, and pulls out his cock.

Alastor stifles a moan at the foreign sensation of leather on skin.

For the first couple of pumps, he avoids looking directly at it, but as he swipes the slit, he bucks up. He’s not sure who’s exactly in charge of the bestial characteristics they share in Hell, but the powers that be who produced this specific design had a diabolical sense of humor. It’s heavy in his hand, and the base begins to swell.

Even as pleasure slowly mounts, guilt claws at him. Remnants of puritanical doctrine and unfamiliar sensations run rampant. He can’t remember the last time he’d done this besides as a perfunctory gesture. Alastor is a hair’s breadth from stopping when the screen fills with the unobscured view of Angel’s body.

As if on cue, Angel’s digital visage mirrors the selfsame gesture. His short, breathy gasps come quicker as he strokes off for the camera, a darker shade of pink blossoming over his body like wildfire.

Alastor watches, mesmerized.

His hand flies on the upstroke, twisting around the head as he cups it, catching the viscous precum between his fingers. The slide becomes easier as he slicks it down his cock. His head turns heavy with the weight of burgeoning antlers. He speeds up as Angel submits, arching prettily.

Onscreen, it traverses simple pornography.

It’s the way he flushes, exposing those deep red freckles at the base of each of his shoulders, that’s beyond sublime. Alastor salivates as he imagines sinking his teeth into them, lapping at the broken skin in mock apology.

  
  


Onscreen, Angel bites his lip.

Alastor’s hand stutters.

Over the past year, Alastor noted and filed away his fellow hotel cohort’s idiosyncrasies through careful observation. He’d compiled a list of mannerisms and habits that allowed him to keep abreast of all situations by observing patterns. Humans and demons, he found, were no more than intricate puzzles. Tics revealed more than words.

Alastor is never more keenly aware of this fact than at this moment.

Because, in all his stores of information and mental library of esoterisms, he remembers that Angel bites his lip when he’s happy.

It’s one of the many facts that he collected and hoarded as he lurked around corners and dispatched his shadow to his room during long lulls.

Reconnaissance, he reminds himself as he stares wistfully at the screen.

Angel looks ethereal when he’s not putting on a false front; when the moans turn less manufactured and more authentic. He wonders if the flamboyant, arrogant behavior he exudes is little more than an act, similar to Alastor’s own.

A part of him wonders if Angel reconciles his visage with his onscreen lover’s, which could explain his recent behavior over the past couple of months. The wretched idea that maybe, when he sees Alastor’s face and murmurs that foreign word, Angel secretly wishes he were another.

He banishes the ugly thought before it consumes him.

The lights blink rapidly overhead. He reels in his powers, drawing them inward lest the others suffer the same effects throughout the hotel. He focuses on the film, letting that consume him instead.

He’s not disappointed. When the shift occurs, it’s blatant.

Out of the blue, Angel’s partner kisses him.

Angel’s eyes fly open in surprise, and Alastor’s breath hitches at his expression. There’s a split second after he’s startled when he melts into it, parting his lips as he moans into the other demon’s mouth. His undulations become more fluid, sensual, as if he’s chasing his pleasure for once instead of focusing on another’s.  
  
He wraps two of his limbs around his partner, coaxing him further in, while the other two trail fluttering fingers along the notches of his antlers.

  


A sudden, frothing rage overwhelms Alastor at the demon thrusting inside him.

The impulse to possess floods his veins with scorching urgency. The demand to claim, to mark, to _mate_. They all coalesce in an amalgamation of base need.

 _Desideratum_.

His own neglected antlers branch out in a thousand thorny boughs, tangling as a result of his tempestuous emotions. He barely registers the resumed flickering of the hotel lights and the high pitched screech of radio feedback. Redness bleeds into his vision, casting Angel and his partner in a crimson hue. His fangs lengthen as his body readies himself to break skin and sink deep within his mate, claiming him with vicious marks.

Only Angel is not present, and Alastor sits alone in the room.

He fights against his demonic biology, battering down animal impulse in an effort to regain his composure. His eyes transform back to pupils as he meets with marginal success. The burgeoning pleasure hinders the reversal, but he can’t bring himself to stop watching.

He quickens his strokes, helplessly witnessing Angel’s pleasure play out onscreen.

  
  


Angel, who cradles his partner’s face, those painted nails soothing the demon. Angel, who looks at him like he does Alastor, with that same teasing gaze that precedes the purr, “Hiya, Smiles.” Angel, who is currently locked in an embrace, on camera, eyes fluttering shut and exposing his neck in submission to someone who is not Alastor.

  


Angel, who bites his lip with hazy eyes.

  


An ugly thread of jealousy pierces and weaves its way through his body. Madness, or a variant of it, licks at his veins as he watches Angel submit, his body shuddering with pleasure.

  


Angel grabs the demon’s antlers to steer him closer.

  


  
  


Feedback shrieks from his microphone, enough to shatter the rest of the lightbulbs overhead. Alastor’s antlers lengthen once more as he envisions locking them with the other demon’s, pitted in a battle for dominion. To claim victory.

  


  


Arousal swells in his belly as his cock thickens in his hand.

  


  


Alastor wonders what it’ll be like to touch him. If his skin is as soft as it looks; if that fluff would spring back from his claws. What it would feel like to take him, just like that _but better_ : raw and flayed open, the naked truth bleeding out for all of Hell (and Heaven, too) to see.

  


  
  


And then.

Angel does something Alastor’s witnessed only a handful of times.

He tilts his head, heterochromatic eyes suffusing with bliss, and yields to euphoria.

To peace. 

It’s the same face he wears when he thinks that no one is watching. When they’re all squabbling in the kitchen during dinner, rowdy as all Hell, but _together_ ; when he’s lying on his side, humming along to Alastor’s radio show, long fingers marching up the piglet’s barbed spine, a shadow spying from the wall; that one drunken night after a nasty bout with Valentino, which ended with Alastor crooning a jazz ditty and both of them sitting side to side on his balcony, waiting for the night to end.

The familiarity, the creeping comfort in all its variations, and the honest truth of it topples Alastor over the edge. 

Torrents of blinding pleasure assault his body.

Alastor swears as his knot swells, bulging inside his closed fist. He tightens his grip, bracing his cock in place as it pulses, spilling as he imagines it trapped inside Angel, who’ll gasp out his name in the same breathy way that he does now, onscreen.

Like a prayer.

His tail twitches as he fucks the last of his come out with his fist. He curses his anatomy as his body locks up in preparation to impregnate. His treacherous mind floods with the overwhelming instinct to breed, a specific demon at the forefront of his hindbrain. 

At face value, this means nothing but biology.

But there’s something else present, just below the surface. It’s tangled up in brambles, and no amount of picking apart the threads would do any good.

The orgasm renders him boneless.

He naively thinks that was the end of it until Angel kisses his partner with a finality that leaves him hollow. It’s soft and sweet and everything he imagines it to be. A pit of longing and despair unhinges its jaws and unlocks somewhere inside him. There’s only one way to fill it, albeit temporarily.

Exhausted and loose-limbed, he checks his pocket watch again.

There’s still time left.

Crumpling up the guilt and discarding it into the depths of his psyche, he takes himself again in hand.

He snaps his fingers.

The film rewinds.

And replays.

(This time, he allows his mind to wander. He views the scenes intently and lets himself imagine what could be, were he present instead.

And what he might give, to see those looks and that soft smile directed again, but this time, at him.)

* * *

He waits for the knotting to subside before hitching up his trousers and stumbling to bed. His head buzzes with a thousand unsavory ideas, all of them unwarranted in the forefront of self-loathing and acrid regret.

But it’s time for rest now. Alastor doesn’t normally require it, but these anomalous circumstances call for exceptional consequences.

A transient strand of thought flits through his head as he sinks back.

He thinks he understands the appeal, now.

Alastor doesn’t dream, but if he did, it would be to the backdrop of jazz, billowing curtains, and Angel’s rapturous face tilted towards the direction of the fictitious horizon.

* * *

The next day, he acts as if nothing has changed.

He resolves to put the matter behind him, cordoning the outlying event inside a box never to be revisited ever again.

However.

Fate apparently holds other plans for him. He rounds the corner only to be met with the exact demon he’d been keen on avoiding.

“Hiya, Smiles,” he greets.

“Good morning, Angel!” he says, much too loud. Alastor winces at every one of those damned words. His microphone shrieks a blast of feedback in consensus.

Angel gives him a strange look before reverting back to his coquettish self. Alastor fixes a smile, pained as it is, under the scrutiny.

“Oo-kay. Anyway. I have some free time tonight,” he begins. He pauses. Alastor observes Angel exhibiting another habit of his: fidgeting.

It’s so terribly Angel, up there with his lip worrying and snorting during unselfconscious belly laughter.

“Yes?” Alastor can’t help but be curious.

Angel fidgets some more, then takes a deep breath. He exhales, and the words come tumbling out with it.

“Wanna catch a fi- _picture show_? The lights are all busted and the electricity’s shot, and I don’t wanna stay in and do nothin’. ‘Specially on my night off.” Angel averts his eyes to the side, suddenly bashful. Alastor staunches the urge to console him.

It’s the most preposterous idea that Angel has ever broached to him, other than their initial introduction, and Alastor would be a fool to open up that particular Pandora’s box.

So he thinks.

What instead comes out is, “I would very much enjoy that. Thank you, Angel.”

Angel flushes, turning that familiar shade of rose. Alastor openly stares, fascinated. His eyes dip lower to his shoulders, covered now, but where Alastor is certain of dark freckles.

He must linger a bit too long because Angel clears his throat.

“Sounds great, Smiles. My room, six? We can walk down to the lobby together.”

It’s not seductive in the least, the way he says it. In fact, it’s tinged with a queer mix of giddiness, and hope.

Alastor either says “Yes” or “Sure” but it’s unclear since his mouth moves on autopilot and his head buzzes with static. Angel nods quickly, as if afraid of him changing his mind, and spins around to amble down the long, dark hallway.

As he leaves, a strange sensation bubbles up, a fountain, in his chest. Alastor watches him, unaware of the subconscious projection of recognizable musical notes drifting in the air. It plays from every speaker nestled inside the hotel, floating through rooms and walls.

The lyrics, filtered through antique radio frequency, sing of life, love, and fixation of time immemorial-

_Angels._

Perhaps, Alastor thinks, it won’t be enough to merely watch anymore.

The very idea, absurd as it _should_ be, is strangely welcome.

* * *

What he misses:

The softest smile gracing Angel’s face, and Angel biting his lip as he walks away.

  
  



End file.
